A webpage is a collection of one or more items available on the World Wide Web that can be displayed using a web browser. A webpage is typically defined or specified by one or more files of information, usually in HTML, XHTML, and other browser-compatible formats. A web browser retrieves a webpage file (e.g., HTML) from a local computer or a remote web server (e.g., a server that serves the HTML using HTTP). The retrieved webpage file (e.g., the HTML) may consist of static text or dynamically created text and typically provides information usable by the web browser, including (a) information about the format of the displayed webpage, (b) items to be displayed on the webpage (e.g., text to be displayed), and/or (c) the location of additional items to be retrieved and then displayed on the webpage (e.g., locations of image files stored on another computer to be displayed).
Displaying a webpage can thus involve displaying static and/or dynamic information from one or multiple locations. Often, a webpage includes displayed non-advertisement-content items from one or more locations and advertisement-content items, which are usually graphics, from one or more other storage locations (e.g., in a separate domain). Various techniques are used to block some or all of the advertisement-content items. Some ad-blocking software keeps track of locations (e.g., domains) containing advertisements and simply does not display (or allow download and/or display of) items from the locations when displaying webpages. Some software blocks advertisements based on source URL. For example, an advertisement image may be stored as file Ad1.gif at a location accessible with the URL company.org/Ads/Product1/Ad1.gif. Ad-blocking software may prevent the display of files from associated URLs (e.g., based on the folder structure of the URL). Depending on the level of exclusion desired, the software may prevent the display of any file (or file type, e.g., image file) from an appropriate folder, where the “*” indicates a wildcard for all content in that folder (i.e., all content having that same beginning URL portion):                company.org/Ads/Product1/*        company.org/Ads/*        company.org/*With one of these ad-blocks in place, a web browser will not display the image from a file whose URL is prohibited.        
FIG. 1 illustrates a traditional webpage display 100 with advertisements 110, 120, 130 displayed. FIG. 2 illustrates the same webpage as FIG. 1 with advertisements blocked. Depending on the webpage files, items may change position upon the removal of advertisement items. In the example depicted in FIGS. 1 and 2, the non-advertisement item 140 moves up to use the space that was intended for several of the advertisement items 120, 130. The end user sees nothing about the advertisements 110,120, 130 that were removed.
Webpage providers desire to prevent having items (advertisement-content or not) blocked for many reasons, including avoiding the loss of revenue from blocked advertisement-content and avoiding the unsightly (or at least unintended) item arrangement often caused when blocked items are not displayed. There is a need for improved techniques for providing content, such as advertisement-content, to improve the appearance of its display and likelihood that at least some of the content will display without being entirely blocked.